Daily Bible Nugget #486, Proverbs 11:1

Pro 11:1 A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight. (KJV)

Pro 11:1 The LORD hates anyone who cheats, but he likes everyone who is honest. (CEV)

My Comment:

Anyone who has experienced the feeling brought on by realizing he or she has been cheated should be able to appreciate the fact that God does not like cheaters.

The use of “false balances” and unjust weights not only applies to business transactions but to many other areas of life.

This ties in to the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.”

I suspect this may well include stealing the reputation of someone by saying or reporting things that are not true about the person. I believe this is done in the news every day by journalists who seem not to know the difference between news and opinion, much to the disadvantage of those not skilled in seeing the difference between news and propaganda.

I heard the report of a poll mentioned in the news today about 54% of the people polled disapproved of President Trump’s Helsinki performance, while 34% approved. Those results suggest to me that too many people get their opinions by listening to or watching news from what I call the “poisoned wells of misinformation.” Such sources fail the test of “fair and balanced reporting.” When 90% and more of the news is negatively slanted against the President, but fails to report anything of significance about the flaws displayed by the political groups that oppose him, you ought to recognize the bias immediately.

We would be far better off if we lived up to the moral standards of the Bible and carefully reported the truth. Failure to report the whole truth is contrary to good journalistic practice as well as contrary to the Bible.

At Helsinki, President Trump was a peacemaker. President Putin was a truth-teller when he reported that $400,000,000 was escorted out of Russia with the help of American intelligence assets and made available to the Hillary Clinton campaign. You may not have read or seen much about Putin’s revelation in any of the major news media. That is an example of a current instance of failure to report the whole truth.